Tangram Puzzle Time

Tangram Puzzle Time is a simulation of tangram with many special additional features and educational opportunities. A tangram is an interesting type of puzzle. A jigsaw puzzle for example has many puzzle pieces but only fits together one way, but a tangram only has seven pieces but can be put together to make many designs. A typical tangram is made from a wooden square tile. The square is cut into seven pieces: 5 squares, 1 square and 1 parallelogram. With this iPad tangram students can build problem solving skills, especially those skills related to visualization and spatial relations. In addition creative teachers use the tangram to help understand fractions. By studying the tangram one can see that the area of one large triangle is 1/4 of the whole tangram. The medium triangle is 1/2 of the large triangle and therefore 1/8th of the whole tangram. Many concepts in geometry can be explored with the tangram. The triangles are right triangles. One angle is 90° and the other two angles are 45°. The large triangle, medium triangle and small triangle are similar triangles. The two large triangles are congruent triangles. The two small triangles are congruent triangles. We designed our iOS tangram to be a fun way to learn math skills, engage in problem solving activities and build a better understanding of certain geometric concepts.